Ep. 185 - Listener Q&A: Should I repeat 5-7 day fasts with one meal in between? | Help! Why is my energy so low while fasting? | How should I take vitamins while fasting? | Did my blood sugar drop 70 points after “just” walking?! | Fasting Challenge
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In today’s Q&A episode, Dr. Scott and Tommy discuss pushing to longer fasts, taking vitamins on an empty stomach, and could brisk walking drop blood sugar levels. and much more.
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Fasting For Life Ep. 185 Transcript
Hello. I'm Dr. Scott Watier.
And I'm Tommy Welling.
And you're
listening to the Fasting for Life podcast.
This podcast is about using fasting
as a tool to regain
your health, achieve ultimate wellness,
and live the life you truly deserve.
Each episode is a short conversation
on a single topic
with immediate, actionable steps.
We cover everything from fat loss
and health and wellness
to the science of lifestyle design.
We started fasting for life because of how
fasting has transformed our lives
and we hope to share the tools
that we have learned along the way.
Hey everyone,
welcome to the Fasting for Life podcast.
My name is Dr.
Scott Water and I'm here as always am a
good friend and colleague, Tommy Welling.
Good afternoon to you, sir.
Hey, Scott, how are you doing?
Fantastic, my friend.
Excited for today's episode.
We are diving into the bag of listener Q&A
questions.
Again.
We've had so many recently
from Instagram and Facebook messages,
which I am not great at checking.
So if we missed you, apologies.
But from our email
from our community group on Facebook,
if you're looking to be around
like minded fasting for life masters,
please head to that group.
That's a that's a mouthful, right?
I head to the show notes, click the link.
Come on in.
Where we talk about fasting 24 seven.
So welcome into today's episode.
Shout out of appreciation to the growth
that you guys
are showing us
through the love of the downloads.
The show just keeps growing, The reviews
keep coming in.
We're just really appreciative for each
and every one of you that listen in that
I've gotten something or applied
something of value to your fasting
lifestyle and just dozens and dozens
and dozens of messages every single month
about people really applying what it is
that we talk about from week to week.
And if you want to learn
more about who we are and what we do,
if you're new to the podcast, welcome in.
Appreciate you giving us a listen.
Tommy
Nice story is episode one of the podcast.
If you want to learn more about why
we do what we do
and our goal is to really reach
as many people as we can to help them lose
weight, regain
their health, reverse their diabetes,
and just improve their quality
of life, and encourage all the listeners
to know that you have a choice
when it comes to this.
And everything you've tried in the past
doesn't reflect
your next attempts results.
You can do this.
Fasting can be the solution for you.
So I know we have a special shout
out on a recent review, Tommy,
that we've gotten over the last few weeks.
Yeah, absolutely.
Five star review.
Thank you so much, Bob.
Bob said These are great podcasts.
Short to the point. I love the duo.
We love you too, Bob.
They give and take
in such a positive manner.
Enjoyed each one.
So appreciate that, Bob Hope
you're doing well on your fasting journey.
Thank you for listening.
Yeah, love the duo.
I appreciate that shout out.
And we reserve the right to not always
make it short and to the point.
But it's this world of podcasting
that you can go to 3 hours on a Joe Rogan.
Right? Right.
Or at Huberman
you can go down a rabbit hole.
So yes, we want to make it, you know,
you can walk away with that applies
directly to your life, just like Bob.
So, yeah, 100%.
Shout out appreciation,
you guys showing up and listening in
tells the podcast powers it be
that we're doing something of value.
We're going to continue to bring it to
you each and every week.
So with that, Tommy, we're going to dive
into the bag of questions
and we find a lot of overlap.
So the ones that we bring to you,
the ones that we find are the most common
threads
in a fasting application to lose weight.
Get healthy.
If you're a beginner, if you've dabbled,
if you're more advanced, these things are
are typically compartmentalized
into these threads that we see.
So we're
going to hit on a couple of those today.
And when we start off with
I want to start off with this one, Tommy,
and this comes in from Kimberly.
This was posted on our community group.
Again, you can find that link
to that community group in the show notes.
If you want to come in and join us
and break the first two rules of fasting,
which are don't charge fast,
don't talk about fasting
and don't talk about fasting with you.
But Kimberly had a question
where she asked anyone
do 5 to 7 day fasts, eat one meal.
Then go again for another 5 to 7 days.
Oh. If so, what were your results like?
Thinking of doing this for the next month?
Now a little context here
and you've got some points
you want to pull out of this
in terms of things that you might be able
to take some liberties with
or read between the lines with. Sure.
But she started fasting.
This is another question
or post that she made a few days prior
to the one that I just read about the 5
to 7 day fast with a meal in between,
she said.
I've been fasting since November of 22
and I've lost approximately £40.
I still have about 50 more to go.
So shout out, Great work.
Incredible. You're doing it.
You're doing it once
and for all. You are doing it.
And then she says, I thought by now
I would have all kinds of energy,
but I don't any
and vice on how I can get some.
So we see these two having some overlap
and possibly some perspectives.
For some of you listeners out there.
And maybe it's not £90 for you,
maybe it's 50 and you're at 20.
Sure.
Or maybe it's 20 and you're at eight.
But the same principles can apply.
Yeah,
it can be very, very tempting to start
to push into longer fasts, especially
when you've been doing it a while.
You feel like results.
Yeah. And you've had results, right?
But then all of a sudden, like,
maybe the scale stops moving,
especially if you have substantial weight
that you still want to lose.
And then but you've been trying for weeks
or maybe even months and it's just like,
Oh, I just can't
get the dang thing to budge.
It can sometimes be tempting to
to continue
to push into longer and longer fast.
So when I hear something like this, I'm
going to assume
that there might be something like that,
like this.
This might be part of a plateau
or like a longer term plateau especially.
But, you know, one of my first questions
is how how consistent
have you felt lately?
Like,
do you feel like you could set a 20 hour
timer, let's say,
or a 22 hour timer and pressure Nomad?
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
Opening and closing a window like, yeah,
Without grazing, without freelancing,
without weekend warrior or without white
knuckling it, you know, feeling like,
Oh, man,
this is so frustrating
or I don't know how I'm going
to be able to do this day
after day after day.
Because if, if you haven't felt consistent
like that lately,
then that can definitely lead
to feeling like, man, I'm maybe
I just need to avoid the kitchen,
avoid the pantry,
avoid the next food decision because I'm
not sure what it's going to be.
And I just can't seem
to get any traction right now
unless I'm pushing into a longer fast
and then this extremely long extended fast
with just like one meal in
between can start to feel tempting.
But it's it's usually not the Holy Grail.
It's usually not the answer.
You know, that's going to actually,
you know,
lead to two better
longer term sustainable results.
So some of the questions or the comments
that came in underneath a Patricia
said, interesting.
I'd like to also know the benefits.
A couple of people said following,
Wow, I don't think I could do
that, especially around this family
when I have to cook meals for everyone.
Wish I had that kind of willpower.
Sure.
Oh, well, I don't want you to have
that kind of willpower, Jade,
because that's not sustainable, right?
So maybe one time, but not repeat it.
Erica said,
I've tried, but it's quite challenging.
The hardest part for me
is not to make that one
meal decision wholesome and not a splurge.
Right? Right.
Then comes the question.
I did, although a lot of people
don't recommend them, which we don't.
The first week I lost £10
and kept dropping 3 to £4 weekly
to the following four weeks.
I build up to it four months doing 48,
So that's,
that's a plan that I like from Yesenia.
But the question from Kimberly came
in, did you gain any of it back
after going back to regular fasting?
And the answer is yes,
of course, there will be a regain,
especially coming off longer fasts.
You will see a 40 to 60% up
to 40 to 60% regain, which is that
glycogen storage, short term energy
supply and water and food.
Like actually we just
we are reintroducing food. So
I like
the idea of doing a 5 to 7 day fast.
I like just any plan
of like building up to it.
Right.
But there's there's that idea
that this is going to be the thing
to get you closer to your goal.
Yeah, I like that application. Sure.
What I don't like is
what is the sustainability
of the weight loss
once you're done doing this?
Yeah, because why do you think
why do you want to actually do this?
And we don't know.
We can speculate, like I said,
and take some, some liberties.
But why would this be your next
level up or next solution now.
Yeah. Doing a 5 to 7 day fast. Sure.
But not having why why the one meal?
Why not just do a 10 to 14 day fast?
Yeah, that's a good point.
If you take a break from food decisions
for 5 to 7 days like that, what do you.
Yeah, you can be.
Why put the one meal in the middle of it.
What would that one meal look like anyway?
Because I mean, psychologically
you've hit, you've hit the cruise control
mark, you know for sure, like 5 to 7 days
in, you're generally
like probably not even really thinking
about food at that point.
And then not feeling good.
So now you got to go break it and go
make what could be a slippery
slope of decisions, especially if things
haven't been working very well recently.
If if your nutrition
just hasn't been 100% on point,
I'm not confident that it would be
in that one meal
because if you have fear of missing out or
oh my gosh, it's been
that's been kind of white knuckling
now I got to go do it again.
What am I going to miss out
for the next week?
How many invitations
or family dinners have I have
I pushed off in the meantime or kids
meals?
Have I said,
oh, two and willpower on my way through,
like Jade said in the comments, sure,
I would just go the whole way.
Like if you want to do it 10 to 14
and you feel like
that's what you're going to do,
then I would just do that.
I mean, the longest I've done
is is a seven day fast, right?
But I would not want to have a meal
like a day, three and a half or day
five and then, you know,
do a couple more days after that for sure.
No, that's that's tough.
So I know we always joke around this,
but about Upton Sinclair wrote The fasting
Cure in 1911.
He says no sane man
or woman would want to do 72 hour fasts
over and over and over again.
Right?
There's some physiological stuff that
takes place mentally challenged to do.
Was that mentally taxing, too?
Yeah, right.
Yeah, of course.
It is.
Now, if you've got £300 to lose,
Okay, Yeah, that's probably
going to work for you for a while.
But is that the maintenance piece?
Is that what it looks like
after the first?
As Kimberly said,
you're going back to regular fasting.
Yeah. So we always want to begin
with the end in mind.
When I love the idea
of doing a seven day fast once a year.
Valter Longo has some incredible research
on that
before the fast mimicking prolonged craze
that's out there now.
Sure.
That, you know, he has some great research
which is getting harder to find,
but about the regenerative benefit.
So what happens is you get deeper
into these longer fasts as your body
starts to go through
some cellular physiological processes.
Right.
And depending on what research
and who you listen to and you know
where it comes from, there's going to be
different benefits that are noted.
But I know for me that when I lost the £50
in 50 days, at the end of those 50 days
and in that 50 days I used fasting
windows, like you said, you mentioned,
you know, 24 or 36 hours, 48,
couple of 6270s.
Right.
And then I had one five day fasting.
There was either five or seven,
I can't remember,
I don't have my journal
where I tracked it all in front of me.
It was years ago,
I think it was a five day.
I think it was 5 to 8. Yeah,
I think it was.
The scale stopped moving
on day three
and then most recently when I did
a seven day fast this past year,
the scale stopped moving on day four
and actually went up on day five and six.
Yeah, I was in a deeper level of ketosis.
I wasn't an ideal nutritional ketosis
or weight loss ketosis anymore
because that's
not the only driving factor.
Imagine if you'd been hanging your hat
on the weight loss,
right, for that interval. Right?
Which is what I feel
this might have to do with.
Which is why I'm bringing this up, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because that can be very frustrating,
demotivating, demoralizing, and then,
I mean,
the exact opposite of how you would want
to go into a second round of that,
you know, let alone the fact that it's
kind of weird physiologically speaking,
when when your body starts going,
okay, no food's coming in, right?
And so you get this transition into just
fat burning, tapping into old long term
fat stores and then all of a sudden
you like, you hit the brakes,
you know, you throw the car into reverse,
you know, on the highway.
Right. And then you break this fast.
So, like, how long is it going to take you
to properly brake that fast?
Like, I wouldn't want to break a 5
to 7 day fast in any in any short order?
No, I would want to go slow.
I'd want to give myself 24 to 36 hours.
I'd want to have some bone broth.
I'd want to eat some fermented foods
like Wade
to have a small meal protein focus,
then have a larger meal.
Right.
And so, yeah, for sure.
To your point,
I wouldn't want to do that either. No.
And then can you imagine,
like the difficulty in closing the window
on the back end of that too?
Or it's kind of like, well,
I just went five or seven days like is my
is my, is my eating window really over
or should I
maybe squeeze in a little bit
more or it's more calories
or oh, I missed out on,
you know, such and such like that's tough.
That's decision fatigue.
Just thinking about it for me. Yeah.
And she was thinking about doing it
for the next month.
Yeah.
So I mean that's that's four rounds.
That's a lot of fasting.
So we are definitely not recommending you
do that, Kimberly And we'll reach out to
to see if there's additional support
we can lend to you.
We have another challenge coming,
coming up here
and you know, we run 6 to 8 a year.
So we've got the challenges,
which would be a great place
to learn some of the skills.
But we always want to use
the fasting windows as petitions
or practice
to see what's not reparations, right?
Yeah, repetitions, not reparations.
I mean, yeah, as practice for what
post weight loss looks like because
we don't want to use fasting as a diet.
It's not about the weight.
There's so many amazing things
that happen in terms of your habits
and weight loss management
and learning how to prioritize food
and make quality of life, etc..
Right?
Quality of life, health
improvement, disease reversal, right.
Coming off medications.
So I think part of this
the other part of her her post a few days
earlier was about
how she can get some energy.
And it's some of the comments
are really great.
You know, sleep more, drink electrolytes
don't work out too much, drink
some more water.
You know how you're fueling your body.
All of these things come in. Yeah.
And she mentions that, you know,
I was expecting to have more energy.
And when we hear something like that
before we even read the comments,
I typically think food choices
or sleep stress cycle.
So either insanely high stress,
cortisol, crappy, terrible sleep,
or which go hand in hand.
I was going to say related, right? Yeah.
Which were part of my three musketeers
of, of insulin resistance
when I was uncovering
what my problem was a few years back.
And she even mentions I don't choose
the healthiest foods when I eat.
So some of you are going to resonate
with this and some of you going to go,
I can just white knuckle
my way through everything. Okay, great.
What happens when the white
knuckling stops?
What happens when you stop eating
the Weight Watchers food?
What happens when you come off
Jenny Craig?
What happens when you stop taking EKG?
What happens is
you stop using fasting as a diet.
Well, now you're off.
So we want that food choice freedom.
And so I would rarely encourage
you, Kimberly, at this point to celebrate
what what you've succeeded with,
which is incredible. Hmm.
And now it's time
to keep the fasting window shorter
and giving yourself more opportunities
to make better nutrition choices
or more consistently,
which is going to serve you
for the second half of your weight
loss journey. Yeah.
The other thing
I think I wonder if this is happening,
like if you had this expectation
of much higher energy levels,
which I, I wholeheartedly believe
they're on the way.
They're still coming for you.
Yeah, I'll keep going, keep pushing.
But if you did have an expectation and now
it's becoming an unmet expectation,
and then when you're in those moments
of decision, it can almost feel like,
well,
I'm a little less motivated by my end
goal, which is kind of disappointing me
currently.
And I have the temptation of a food
that might be highly craveable
or have an emotional response.
Like there's
some comfort in that food too.
And maybe in those
in those moments of decision,
the food is winning out
because I'm really not anchored to
something
that's really exciting me right now.
I don't have this
this big like goal or target
that I'm heading towards,
you know what I mean?
And then those decisions add up day
after day, which also brings me
back to the 5 to 7 days
with one meal in the middle of it, too.
And then
it can it can definitely feel like, well,
I think I just
need to avoid food decisions right
now, you know, and that can push me
towards a longer fast as well. Yeah.
I want to encourage you
that if you're looking to like level up
your fasting skills
and do a 5 to 7 day fast, absolutely
it can be transformational,
but just know the possible regain
and know that after you come out of that,
you want to have a solid plan
on how to get back to what
we call the foundations of fasting,
getting in your hydration,
making proper food choices, you know,
almost like the basics of fasting,
like doing shorter, more consistent
fasts, shorter,
especially right after that,
which is what maintenance will look like
right now.
And some people are listening to
why you're not even close to maintenance.
Right.
So the same skills that have you lose
the weight are the same skills
that have you keep it off
but applied in a different way.
After I lost the £50,
it was way harder for the next 18 months
to two years to figure out
how to stop it from coming back.
Yeah, then it was from originally
just committing to 50 days of like fire
breathing, fasting where I was just like,
Give me more, give me more,
let's do a five day.
I'm going to do another 72.
How fast can I lose the weight?
Well, it was pretty.
It was I mean, it wasn't like I was doing
four, seven day rounds of fasting, right?
It was 48, 30, 33,
Now, obviously,
I don't have my journal in front of me.
We moved. It's in a box somewhere.
I can probably find it.
But then it was all right, well,
I want to level up.
Let's do a five day.
The five day turned into seven
and I'm like, okay, boom, here we go.
Or if it was five or seven,
I can never remember.
I think you think it was five?
I'm thinking seven. I don't know.
I probably like to over elaborate on that.
Yeah, right.
Maybe it was a 20.
It was a 20 day. You're right.
But there were a lot of food decisions
in there, too.
There were. There were.
And there were a lot of food failures
in there, too. Sure.
And you need those? Yeah.
Yeah. So I want to encourage you that.
Yeah,
if you want to level it up, go for it.
But just be careful in the back
end knowing that we really want to be
focusing on those foundational things
and those foundational fasting pieces.
You know,
my daughter just asked me
about the tortoise
and the hare this morning,
and so going back to the tortoise
and the hare, like slow
and steady, really does win the race.
So rather than feeling
like you need to avoid those
those food decisions, take them on,
take them on, you know, head on.
Think about in the moment
what is so tempting about,
you know, this certain
craveable food decision and is that really
what I want more than losing the other £50
and actually getting the energy back
that I've been looking for?
Which one feels more tempting
in that moment?
If you honestly ask yourself right
now, it's not necessarily
going to win every time,
but if you can keep that kind of question
front of mind,
you might make some different decisions
in the moment that are going to add up.
Yeah.
So I like to ask the question
when it comes to food, but why?
But why am I eating this?
Yeah, where does that come from?
Because there's an emotional connection
to food.
Usually it's hope, bias related, hungry,
angry, lonely, tired, bored or stressed.
So if you're looking for a refocus
then yeah.
Please dive into the podcast,
Reach out, shout out to us, post questions
in the group, in the community group.
Again, you can find that link in the show
notes, Grab the blueprint,
the Fasting for life blueprint
that we dropped in January.
It has some more context to the
why question of why it matters.
I'm going to encourage
you just to dive into that right,
Preferably on a longer fast
when your head is clear
and you got some increased BNF believing
those brain cells where
you can get some clarity on on really why
it's important for you to lose the weight
so great great great comment great post.
Keep up the great work
you are a massive success
and we want to see you continue
to have that success as well.
So I had a question come in from Georgia.
Georgia.
I usually had my vitamins in the morning.
Should I wait now until I have my food?
Thank you. So this is a question,
a beginner type question.
Where what about Lemon?
Can I have this? Can I can I.
Can I?
And there's tons of post we have a pinned
post in our community group
that I outline our perspective
on how we answer these types of questions.
What about sweeteners?
What about insert X-Y-Z, right?
Can I put creamer in my coffee?
Bulletproof coffee? Yeah. Yeah, right.
So it's not a one size fits all.
Now, fasting consistently is a one size
fits all.
You just have to apply
the times and the decisions
and the lifestyle application to you.
But Joanne asked about the vitamins,
so if you can take the vitamins
on an empty stomach,
I'm not too worried about it.
And I think if you're taking the vitamins
for a very intentional reason,
then, you know, let's say for vitamin D,
I don't get enough sun.
I need vitamin D, I know how important
it is to keep those numbers up,
you know, in terms of disease prevention.
So I supplement with vitamin D,
I don't eat a lot of fish.
I have years of imbalanced
omega ratios in my cells.
So skewed a lot of six is not enough.
Three six is like 30 to 1 ratios,
restaurant, foods, college
like not knowing about nutrition, right,
and all that stuff.
So I supplement with fish oil
for overall health reasons.
Right. We know decreasing cardiovascular
risk etc.. Okay.
So if that's the type of stuff
you're doing, great.
If there's a health benefit
and you like it
and you feel good with it, great, Take it.
If you can take it on an empty stomach.
If not, put it into
when you break your fast
and then take your supplementation.
Now, outside of this, I'll say if you're
talking about like protein shakes
and those types of things,
then I would absolutely move
those types of supplementation
into your eating window.
Now, he specifically said vitamins.
I'm not thinking that's the case.
Yeah,
but whatever works for you, try it out.
But when you say protein shakes,
you're thinking about things
with actual nutrition,
like substantial calories.
You may have a blood sugar
insulin response.
Okay, We get this question
about add one to athletic greens.
Sure. Yeah.
I mean, if you feel I would feel better,
that would just do me any time.
It's such a small as we like to say
papercut in a house fire.
Yeah it was like 15 calories.
Yeah.
When it when I pulled it up. Yeah.
Technically it breaks the fast. Sure.
But why do most people come to fasting
to lose weight and get healthy?
Your fat cells don't care
about technically, right?
So fat cells are perfectionist.
Yeah.
Now, now, if you're a clean faster
than absolutely be a clean, faster water
owner, do it. Absolutely
right.
So Amy had a question, came in.
Could a brisk walk
have really dropped my blood sugars
from 167 to the high nineties? Wow.
Unbelievable place.
Yes, it could.
We talk a lot about walking
and how walking is one of those optimizers
of the weight
loss, prioritizing protein,
walking after meals or vinegar
before meals, eating your meals
in a way to help balance blood sugar?
Yeah, the timing of it.
The timing. Right.
So, yes, a walk can do that.
So a lot of people replied
in the comments.
Yes, yes, yes.
And then Amy asked, did
I undo some damage?
No one knows I'm fasting.
My husband surprised me and bought me
all the favorite foods for Mother's Day
lunch. Hmm.
Okay, I'm done. Done. Then I remembered.
So someone else's plan is now messing
with your plan, man.
Yeah. Okay.
If they don't
know, then they can't be blamed. Hmm.
I have learned this.
Yeah, They can't support my wife.
And I joke.
You read my mind right now.
You read my mind? Yeah. Tell me.
Okay, great.
In the first years of marriage,
not so much.
Right? Didn't happen.
Walked into that bear trap
quite a few times.
Now I've learned I have scars to prove it.
I'm actually one more to be
a lot more vocal about what I'm thinking.
Like she think she tells me.
And I'm like, No,
not one of those. Oh, my husband forgot.
No, not that.
Like, self-admitted.
Yeah, I don't think I told you that.
All right, So that's part of the problem.
But I remembered someone said something
about a brisk walk after a high carb meal.
Mm hmm.
So I threw my shoes on and booked
it up the road for about 15 to 20 minutes.
Okay, Good move.
Way to be proactive with it.
Great.
Great, great way to take action, Tommy.
The action was taken.
The fact that you saw this link
around a 70 point drop,
even if it was temporary, is was because
we hadn't gotten that part yet. EPA
is is great because we know
the insulin response is going to be less
after any sort of meal,
but especially after a high carb meal
where the delta is so compelling
that this would be the normal response.
And now here's what it is, you know,
with with a brisk walk after the meal.
And so it's incredibly powerful.
It's also it's also just a good habit
to get into.
It's part of your fasting lifestyle.
It's part of the foundational things
that you can do
without really giving it
a whole lot of thought
or too much preparation
or anything else like that.
So when we
when we look at what's on your plate,
we can then we can start to optimize
what's on the plate too.
And so I'm glad you highlighted
the fact that it was a high carb meal.
So I'll let you get back to the story.
Well, then she came back a little after
and said,
I guess joke is in me is on me,
Sugars are right back up.
So I want to encourage you, Amy,
that if you're doing finger pricks,
then these two small data points show
some promise
and show some potential problems. Hmm.
Now, a high carb diet
we know spikes your blood sugar.
Sure. What time of day was it?
Was this a Oh, she said for lunch.
So it was midday.
Because if it was in the morning,
that would be different.
Your blood sugars would already
be potentially elevated.
If you have some blood sugar issues,
which a 167 reading
you could write, We don't want to see
those big spikes after meals.
My wife was recently using a CGM
just for fun
just to learn about some of the foods
and things and do some do some testing.
We'd like to be guinea pigs. Yeah.
And she was like, Man,
I eat chipotle, and my blood sugar went up
like 40 points, and her blood sugar
hadn't budged out of the green.
Yeah, like once in, like, two weeks.
She's like, I worked out this happen,
I did this, this.
And I'm like, Why?
Because you're healthy. Why?
Because you're healthy. Why?
Because you're healthy.
You don't have any.
Your insulin is like 2.5.
You don't have it in
your metabolically healthy But
she Chipotle went up 4040 spike for her
which is the biggest spike she's had. Mm.
I bet she was frustrated
so she was like what I do wrong.
Right. Like Amy I was on my broken.
So then she's like, you know what?
She gave me a compliment and said,
I think I'm going to have it at walk
next time and see what happens.
Nice.
She added, The walk didn't spike at all.
I'm so you have one data point here, Amy.
Now your blood sugars are 167.
The fact that they went down
and responded to the walk great. Yes.
But there's a few things in here.
If your heart rate elevated
because you said brisk.
Now about you,
I can think about back in the day
after Thanksgiving,
if I tried to go for a walk, I mean,
man, laboring, I'd be like,
you feel every breath, you're full.
So I'd be out of breath.
My heart rate would be elevated, right?
So you would actually get
a cortisol spike,
which would then result in your body
requiring blood sugar,
which would then cause them to rebound
after you burn through
some of that short term storage.
Yeah, especially
if you're very sedentary. Right?
Like if you're not conditioned for this
and then you
you just all of a sudden went out
and did this and that's potentially
higher,
more stressful on the body too, Right?
So if the sugars are that high,
then you might need more than a 20 minute
walk, Right.
Because Amy did it.
She walks three miles a day,
which is great.
Walking's fantastic.
But this is just one small data point,
you know,
one not normal meal.
So I wouldn't beat yourself up too much
about it, but I also like to know.
So yeah, possibly a CGM continuous
glucose monitor might be helpful
or maybe recreate this on your terms
on a certain day
and play around
with some of the variables.
Check it again after doing a walk
that's twice as long or three times
as long and see what happened
after you had that same that same meal
or check it at the two hour mark post
because we don't know when she tested it
See what your blood sugar is doing that
it returned to normal.
Great. You're okay. Cool thing.
Why people always ask about
like test strips and genome ojos and CGM.
Yes, we have partnered with a lot
of companies that we trust because it is
helpful for reversing diabetes
and knowing geologically what's going on.
But sometimes it can cause a chink
in the armor.
Sure. Or doubt.
And have you doubt the situation.
The cool thing is the
the antidote to the doubt right here
is the fact that if you went from 167 down
to, you know, what was it, 97.
So what's going to matter?
Is the area under the curve over time.
So if you did
if you dropped
your blood sugar for a while, if normally
it would have been elevated for that for,
let's say 4 hours and now it was only
elevated for three or three and a half,
Guess what you made You made an impact.
You made a difference.
It was it was only 75 or 80%
of what it would have been
if you did the same thing
without the walk.
Like, that's it's worth it.
It's worth it to do that.
And that's that's your encouragement
to keep doing what you're doing.
The focus here is walking after the meal
because she said she walks
three miles every day.
Walking after meals has been shown
to decrease blood sugar.
Spike Now, if it was a very high carb,
chocolaty, indulgent thing
then,
and you have some insulin resistance,
which you might based on that 167 number,
I don't know.
But you're going to get a
maybe your insulin rise to process
that blood sugar,
which then can cause a rebound effect
because your body isn't effectively
using insulin, your insulin sensitivity
isn't as good as it should be.
Yeah.
So you'll see these big swings
where we want to minimize
those peaks and valleys and get more time
in a healthy range over time.
Yeah.
So the positive here is you now know what
your body did this time.
You now can recreate it.
We took some liberties with the variables
here.
Sure.
But the positive here
is that you took the action.
So now take the action with intention.
Walking after your meals consistently
and you're going to see some crazy,
crazy change. You're on the right.
You're on the right path.
Just don't let this derail you.
It was Mother's Day.
He didn't know. Okay?
All the husbands out there planned better,
but he didn't know.
Maybe ask your wife what she's expecting.
I learned that after Mother's Day
number one,
my wife lost her mother the previous year.
I learned like, whoa,
There was some emotion.
I wasn't even thinking about that.
Yeah, I was just like,
How can we make this day special?
So hall pass for him, Right? Okay.
He gets It's fine
next year, you know, next time,
you know, next celebration, you know.
But the fact is, you took the action
and that's what really matters.
So I'm proud of you, Amy, for doing it.
And then also now
hopefully moving past it.
Yeah. Keep taking action for sure.
Yeah, Keep it.
Taking action. That's what we want
you guys to do every episode.
We want you to have something actionable
that you can do.
So if you're looking to continue
the conversation, head to the show notes.
You can join the fasting for life
community or it is all like minded factors
that we break the first two rules
of fasting each and every day.
Just incredible, positive, encouraging.
I've been a part of some fasting groups
like the Intermittent
Fasting for Men Group.
It's pretty aggressive, pretty,
pretty angry.
Not not, not my cup of tea.
So we just have a great group, people
grab the blueprint, the blueprint
to fasting for fat loss.
It's our 20 page pdf Fasting Resource.
It talks about schedules,
how to break your fast,
a little bit of the
why in the context behind why we believe
fasting is such a powerful, powerful tool
for so many folks.
And Tommy,
I think that's all we got for today.
So yeah, good stuff. Conversation.
Keep taking action, guys.
You never know what that next
breakthrough is.
That might be right around the corner.
Keep the questions coming
in. The five star reviews.
Thank you, sir.
We'll talk soon. Thank you. Bye.
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